Steak Tartare

I admit Steak Tartare may not be something you associate with winter food.
It's cold, it's fresh and would fit much better into a light summer dish.

However, after lots of braised meat, we felt like having something lighter for dinner.

When younger I used to be absolutely disgusted by the idea of eating raw meat.
Sushi kind of paved the way at the turn of the millennium for me to be more open-minded and willing to experiment with raw fish and meat.
But it certainly took me a while and an incredibly good Steak Tartare hors d'oeuvre I was served in a restaurant once, to get used to the idea.

Most important with dishes like this is definitely the freshness of the ingredients.
Therefore get your meat from a butcher you trust and fresh (organic) eggs.

Here is what you need for two servings (large portions) or 4 servings (appetizer size):

400g of beef tenderloin/filet
2 shallots finely chopped
2 tsp parsley, finely chopped
2 tsp chive, finely chopped
1 tsp of capers, finely chopped
2 small pickles/cornichons finely chopped
1 tsp (hot) mustard
6 splashes of Tabasco
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
salt
pepper

Also:
two egg yolks (4 small egg yolks, if it is for 4 servings)
good balsamic vinegar or crema di balsamico

Directions:

Remove fat and connective tissue from the meat if necessary.
Chop the meat very finely with a sharp knife (NOT in the meat grinder)
Mix together with all the other ingredients.
Form 2-4 patties and create a little crater on the top surface of each of them.
Carefully place an egg yolk in each crater.

Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar or crema di balsamcio.

Serve immediately with salad and (toasted) bread.

Notes:
All the measurements for the ingredients are approximately. Feel free to adjust and season to taste.
I used more mustard, worcestershire sauce and capers then asked in the recipe for example.

Oh yeah, and the birds are happy about their never ending winter food supply as well!

Red beets salad with caramelized pecans and dill

After travelling and extreme floods, here is finally a new blog post with a fantastic summer salad.

This red beets salad is super refreshing and a perfect way of getting all the raw vegetables and nuts you need.
It's a nice addition to all that meat at your barbecue party and can also be served as a nice and healthy appetizer or as a light lunch or dinner.

I cannot wait to use the beets from our garden for it! Still have to wait a little on those ones...

What you need:

4-5 red beets (fresh)
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 spring onions, chopped into fine rings
300-350 g (approx.) 1-1.5 cups of yogurt (around 3.2-3.5% fat)
150-200ml (approx 0,25-0.5 cup) heavy cream
150g pecans chopped
1 bunch of dill, roughly chopped
1 bunch of chives, roughly chopped
salt, pepper, honey/sugar
olive or carmelina oil

Directions:

Peel the red beets.
You may want to use gloves for that because of the red dye. I didn't and it washed off my hands quite easily.
With the grating attachement on a food processor (ideally) roughly grate the beets.

In a pan slowly roast the chopped pecans.
When browned, add some honey or sugar and caramelize the pecans with it.
Remove from heat and set aside to cool down.

In a pan heat up some olive/carmelina oil at medium heat.
Add the garlic and spring onions and sautée for a few minutes, until soft (do not fry them!).
Set aside and let cool down.

In a big salad bowl mix together grated red beets, yoghurt and cream.
Add dill and chive, as well as garlic, spring onions and roasted pecans.

Mix well.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and maybe a tiny bit of sugar.

The salad tastes even better a day later, after it has been sitting in the fridge for a while.

Notes:

All the measurements especially for the yogurt and cream are pretty much measured by eye.
I don't follow a recipe when doing it.
It always depends on how big the beets are. The beets should be nicely coated with the yoghurt-cream mix.
And regarding the dill and chive: Be generous! You cannot really screw anything up by adding 'too many' fresh herbs.

You could use sour cream instead of yoghurt, as well.

Gazpacho

Summer is approaching and it's steadily getting hotter and unfortunately more and more humid here in Berlin.
A good reason to dig out refreshing and light summer recipes.
I started off with Gazpacho a cold spanish tomato based raw vegetable soup.
This sounds awful, I know.
But, let me tell you, it was pretty damn good!
It is really easy to cook, the ingredients are cheap, and it certainly helps to keep or get back into summer shape (I know with most of us, this is, of course, not the case...).

All you need is:

900g tomatos
1 cucumber
2 red or yellow peppers
1 fresh red chilli
2 garlic cloves
175g white bread crumbs
2 tbsp tomato purrée
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
a dash cumin
salt and black pepper










Peel the tomatos.
Therefore place them in boiling water first (for about 30 seconds)  and then quench the tomatos in ice cold water.
That way it's easier to remove the tougher skin.
It will come off easily now.
Quarter the tomatos.
Peel and chop the cucumber.
Cut the peppers and the red chilli and remove the seeds.
Press or finely chop the garlic cloves.
Mix all the vegetables together with breadcrumbs, olive oil, white wine vinegar and tomato purrée.
Season to taste with salt, pepper and cumin.
Put half or a third of the mixture into a blender.
Add 150-250ml of water, depending on how juicy the vegetables are.
Blend until smooth.
Do the same with the rest of the vegetable mix.
The Gazpacho should not be too thin but have a rather creamy texture.
Therefore be careful not to add too much water.
You can always add more in the end.
Refrigerate it for a couple of hours.

Best served with ice cubes, croutons, some basil or parsley for decoration and maybe a dash of worcester sauce!